2013 Roundup

Out of boredom and a severe lack of creativity, I decided to do one of these awful questionnaires that float around tumblr. I thought it had some good questions that helped me look back throughout the year. If you feel like doing this yourself, feel free to copy and paste it!

• 1:What did you do in 2013 that you’d never done before? Visited Portland!
• 2:Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I think so, and no. I’m going to constantly try to better myself and do good.
• 3:Did anyone close to you give birth? A friend did, yes. And her baby is the cutest ever.
• 4:Did anyone close to you die? Nope. No one close to me ever dies. I never get the chance to put a cute funeral look together!
• 5:What countries did you visit? Canada. You don’t need to remind me how lame that is.
• 6:What would you like to have in 2014 that you lacked in 2013? A puppy and more self confidence.
• 7:What dates from 2013 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? October 5th only because it was my birthday and I had an extremely fun bash. Also May 4th because that’s when I took my husband to Disney World :)
• 8:What was your biggest achievement of the year? Reading over 30 books! An all-time high for me!
• 9:What was your biggest failure? Being idle.
• 10:Did you suffer illness or injury? A little bit here and there.
• 11:What was the best thing you bought? Anything that makes me feel good–facials, massages, bath products, perfume, etc.
• 12:Whose behavior merited celebration? My mom’s.
• 13:Whose behavior made you appalled? My dad’s.
• 14:Where did most of your money go? Bath products, books, movies, clothes, tennis lessons.
• 15:What did you get really, really, really excited about? Vacations, seeing family, shopping!
• 16:What song will always remind you of 2013? “Don’t Save Me” by Haim
• 17:Compared to this time last year, are you: (a) happier or sadder? (b) thinner or fatter? (c) richer or poorer? Happier, thinner, personally poorer, collectively richer. Things are lookin’ up for old Lils.
• 18:What do you wish you’d done more of? Exercised, volunteered, danced, stayed up late, laughed.
• 19:What do you wish you’d done less of? Sleeping, eating, being moody/mean.
• 20:How did you spend Christmas? In Vegas with my cute little husband. He’s not actually little, but he’s cute.
• 21:Did you fall in love in 2013? I continued to fall in love.
• 22:What was your favorite TV program? I liked Catfish, Biggest Loser, Breaking the Faith (all terrible reality TV shows) and Mad Men.
• 23:Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? Hate, no. Highly dislike, probably. No one comes immediately to mind though.
• 24:What was the best book you read? Ready Player One by Ernest Cline was one of my favorites. I also loved East of Eden by John Steinbeck and The Red Tent by Anita Diamant.
• 25:What was your greatest musical discovery? Haim, Lorde, more Lana del Rey, more Elvis Costello, XM radio stations.
• 26:What did you want and get? A new iPad.
• 27:What did you want and not get? The ability to gracefully walk in heels.
• 28:What was your favorite film of this year? This is the End, Prisoners, Philomena, Blue Jasmine.
• 29:What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying? Growing and learning with my husband.
• 30:How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2013? Black, maxi dresses, mini skirts, comfortable, sweaters, rings.
• 31:What kept you sane? My husband, my mom, and music.
• 32:Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Eddie Redmayne, Leonardo DiCaprio, James Franco, Ryan Reynolds.
• 33:What political issue stirred you the most? None. I am not one to be stirred by politics.
• 34:Who did you miss? My friends and family.
• 35:Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2013. Blood isn’t always thicker than water.
• 36:Quote a song lyric that sums up your year. “Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be.” -Doris Day

Hope you have a happy new year! Thank you so much for following my blog, or just for stopping by! I really appreciate it!

Left Over Resolutions 2012

Doesn’t 2013 sound like an unlucky year? Is no one bringing up the fact that thirteen is unluckiest number of them all? Hotels don’t even make a thirteenth floor, that’s how bad it is. But it’s okay, let’s just all keep pretending that 2013 will be a great year.

I was looking at my resolutions last year and I was actually very surprised. Usually resolutions depress me because I’ve never really set a goal for myself and accomplished it. At least, not on purpose. But I completed a lot of the things on my list with flying colors!

For example, one of my goals was to start volunteering and I estimated that it would only last four months once if I started. Well, not only did I get a volunteering job, I stayed there for 10 months. Technically I’m still there, but they’ve been slow for a while so they haven’t needed me much.

Another resolution of mine from last year was to be more spontaneous in Victoria–do things I haven’t done, make more friends, and put myself out there. Well, now I’ve made lots of friends and did many adventurous things. And by that, I mean that I went camping twice.

Something else I had on my list was to read more. I projected that I would probably read one book this year and I ended up reading five! My little library is growing. I didn’t even realize I was completing a goal I set out for myself. Maybe that’s the key to setting goals, they have to be something you like to do so that you’ll end up accomplishing them no matter what.

Something else I wanted to do was to “make our apartment cozy and perfect”. I am so proud of myself with this one. Around the time that I wrote last year’s post, I had saved up a little over $1000 with my babysitting money and I wanted to buy a couch with it. Since then, I’d saved up enough to buy that couch, a chair and ottoman, a rug, a TV credenza/mini entertainment center, a trunk, and a mirror. I have definitely accomplished that goal. It makes me proud to have “feathered the nest” and I think it makes Paul proud too.

I still had other things on my list that I didn’t really accomplish like going to church more, stop hatin’ on people, and to complain less. And I think those will be my resolutions for this year. The year of the left-over resolutions.

But really, like I said last year, I’m basically perfect and I’m just writing this list out to feel more human.

2012 In Review (How Precious. Thanks WordPress!)

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

About 55,000 tourists visit Liechtenstein every year. This blog was viewed about 180,000 times in 2012. If it were Liechtenstein, it would take about 3 years for that many people to see it. Your blog had more visits than a small country in Europe!

Click here to see the complete report.